February 06, 2008

Every venture capital firm here in the Valley has its own approach to staying connected to entrepreneurs, early stage investors, and likely acquirers. Some teams throw lavish parties, some hold retreats with motivational speakers, others just woo folks with the old faithful dinner and wine routine. Thanks to Bill Tai and Saar Gur, Charles River Ventures has taken a very different approach: kite junkets.

Bill started the tradition a few years ago when he invited a couple dozen folks from Silicon Valley to join him and a smattering of professional kitesurfers in Maui for a few days of riding perfect winds in warm water and geeking out about technology whenever the winds were light. The trip was an instant hit with folks of varying kitesurfing abilities making the trek to Maui and learning one of the more thrilling sports I have experienced. I was lucky enough to be invited last year and had an unqualified blast.

This weekend, the CRV guys outdid themselves, however, as they invited a group of us to join them in Utah for a weekend of snowkiting. Yeah. Kitesurfing on snow!

We were buried in fascinating amounts of snow during the trip, making the entire venture difficult. Nevertheless, thanks to capable guides like the trio who kited Mavericks and the Farallons, Jeff Kafka, Chips Wasson, and Steve Gibson, we were soon being whipped around an 11,000 foot ridge outside of Mt. Pleasant, UT.

Kiting on show is surreal as it is possible to travel in all four directions, including heading uphill! That said, the stakes are raised when jumping and crashing as hard ground tends not to be as forgiving as water. Ouch.

I will skip over a detailed review of what transpires when two dozen adrenaline junkie nerds descend upon a quiet Mormon town's sole watering hole and encounter a one man band who we soon convert to a karaoke format. Let's just say that the power of rock was palpable.

On Sunday, the snow came down even harder making kiting at high elevation impossible due to lack of visibility. Discouraged, we pulled stakes to head for some resort skiing in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Along the way up Interstate 15, Chip scoped out a large field just off the road in Draper, UT and thought it might be worth throwing up some kites. Far from the wonderfully isolated park in which we had kited the day before, let me be clear. This was a 10 acre field just off the road with a Cabela's superstore on one side and the neighborhood embodiment of the subprime mortgage crisis on the other. In fact, our field was probably intended to be "Phase 2" of the development before the financing dried up.

Needless to say, kiting in suburbia was a hoot. Chip, Steve, P-Air Wolff, and I pumped up our kites and cheered as each of them took to the sky. Dozens of trucks (people in Utah don't drive cars, it seems) pulled over to make heads or tails of what these wahoos were doing. We ripped back and forth, popped airs, and laughed out loud for a couple of hours. Such a memorable day. To make it even better, Steve let me know he has officially named the spot "Subprimes."

All told, I love new adventures and snowkiting was no exception. More than just the individual thrill, there is something so incredible about tackling fresh challenges with friends. On this trip, I made some great new pals and got closer to some old ones. Thanks again to Bill and Saar for putting this together and I look forward to seeing you all on the snow, or the water, soon.

January 31, 2008

A quick check of the FCC Auction 73 site this morning reveals that the bidding in Round 17 pushed the provisional winning bid for the nationwide C block of 700MHz spectrum over the $4.6 billion reserve price. As a result, openness principles will now apply to all use of that spectrum.

While the auction is by no means over, and I am as curious as anyone to see who ultimately emerges as the highest bidder, congratulations to everyone who worked tirelessly, took great risks,
and spoke up for what they believed to make this crazy idea a reality.

January 28, 2008

I am frequently asked how long I think Eric, Larry, or Sergey will stick around at Google. Folks query, "Those guys have made unfathomable amounts of money and must have other things they would like to do with their time, no?"

I have never known how to respond to such a question. In my time there, I didn't ever get the sense any of the three of them wished they were doing anything other than their jobs at Google. Yet, there would seem to be some implicit limit as to how long a tenure you could expect from mere mortals, right?

Schmidt:
Two years, seven months, and four days ago. But who's counting?
Actually, we agreed the month before we went public that we would work
together for 20 years. I will be 69, and according to Google I'm going
to live to 84, so I should be fine.

January 27, 2008

I am backing an edgy little content company in New York City that needs their first full-time tech lead. This is an opportunity to get in at the ground
level of a rapidly growing web property, which already has tons of sweet press, sick and steadily growing traffic, and some very passionate users.

Required characteristics:- Expert knowledge of PHP 5, DHTML, CSS, and JavaScript- Ninja skills with relational database design and deployment for dynamic DB driven sites using MySQL 5- Deep comprehension of HTML design capabilities and constraints of various platforms and browsers
- Minimum of 3 years of strong Object Oriented design and programming experience- Familiarity with MVC/tiered architectures- Fancy front-end chops (AJAX)- Experience with Apache, SVN, SSH, etc.- SEO know-how- Understanding of ad-serving and optimization- Start-up hunger and ambition- Strong preference that you are located in NYC. Remote superstars will be considered nonetheless.

Keeping the lid on the property name for now until the site that YOU build gets relaunched, but it isn't porn, gambling, nor an outpost for fascist propaganda. That said, this site is extremely cool, currently being courted for acquisition, AND chicks dig it. I am quite willing to bet that working with these guys will get you laid.

December 20, 2007

[As you likely heard by now, I am leaving Google to start an early stage venture capital fund. For weeks, I have been thinking about the blog post I would write to spell out my timing, my reasoning, and what is next for me. However, John Battelle, author of a fascinating book on the early days of Google, covered all that and more in an interview I did with him earlier this week and I thought I would just restate those answers here. Many thanks to John for publishing the piece and thank you to Google for the best times of my life so far.]

________

A Brief Interview With Chris Sacca

I've enjoyed my professional relationship with Chris Sacca, who is leaving Google
to pursue a career in investing. When I heard of his move, I pinged him
in email, and the resulting dialog can be found below, verbatim,
despite the fact that Google PR was cc'd on the thread. Thanks for your
time, Chris, and good luck!
Why leave, and why now?

A few reasons. First, I feel like the wireless team I built is in
great shape and poised for some amazing achievements. I am proud of
what the team accomplished this year and it makes me smile to see
Verizon and AT&T fighting over which is more open than the other.
Hard to say more about that without triggering the anti-collusion rules
of the FCC around the 700MHz auction. That said, though I love Google
and my colleagues here, I vested this Fall and it occurred to me how
much I miss working in small, entrepreneurial environments.

It's refreshing to
hear "I vested" as part of an answer – even with PR listening. It's
such a powerful force. You also won a Founders Award while at Google.
What for, and how much was it for?

I was part of a team negotiators that won one of the first Founders
Awards at Google recognizing us for the hundreds of millions of
dollars of cost savings we had achieved in scaling Google's
infrastructure. There are a lot of unsung heroes in that part of
Google's business whose names are not well-known, but whose impact is
humbling. I won't say exactly how big the award was, but I will say I
am very grateful to the Larry and Sergey for their generosity. :)

I bet!
So as you leave Google, what do you think the best part of working
there was? What is your greatest accomplishment? And, what frustrated
you about the company?
I deeply admire how Eric, Larry, and Sergey are trying to build a
100-year company. Google encourages team leaders and entrepreneurs to
take actions that traditional public companies, who are being managed
quarter by quarter, would never be able to take. This allows Googlers
to forget about short-term distractions and instead focus on
accomplishing deep and fundamental changes to an industry or space.
It's not fluff. I saw it every day and it was inspiring.

The wireless spectrum and openness stuff makes me smile. To see an
informal, unchartered team come together over this past year and
already catalyze some dramatic change in the US wireless ecosystem
leaves me feeling good. Though I was hopeful about the impact we would
have, I must admit that even I didn't expect Verizon and AT&T to be
publicly feuding over claims they are the most open carrier. That said,
I am most proud that it was entirely a team effort and there are some
very strong Googlers who will carry the torch in my absence.

The one thing I began to miss at Google as it grows was the ability
to be a generalist within the company. In a startup, it is easy and
encouraged for folks to wear multiple hats. I used to buy data centers
and fiber, manage an acquisition, work on Google Talk, pitch an access
partner, receive a dignitary and give a speech about the future of
media all in the same week. As a company gets bigger, inevitably, it
begins to organize itself vertically and employees are pushed to
specialize. As I focused my efforts almost exclusively around wireless,
I began to miss the excitement and learning that comes with having
touchpoints across the entire company on many different teams. One of
the reasons I have enjoyed working with my portfolio companies like
Photobucket, Twitter, and Auctomatic so much is that it reminds me of
those early Google days.

So what are you interested in when it comes to investing? What
gets your attention?

I think there is still a lot of opportunity in consumer web.
Despite the fascinating number of funded teams in the space, it seems
that many entrepreneurs can't get outside the Silicon Valley echo
chamber long enough to identify problems that millions of users need
solved. For instance, I loved the Photobucket investment because there
was so much attention on flickr, many investors were essentially
ignoring Photobucket despite its traffic being 3-4x larger.

Beyond that, I think we are starting to see the U.S. mobile
industry wake-up and go open. As much as the iPhone frustrates those of
us who have been fighting for user choice and unfettered distribution
when it comes to mobile apps, I do think we need to give Apple some
credit for getting American consumers excited to use their devices to
access the broader Internet. This hunger for more utility, combined
with increasing openness creates so much opportunity for sharp teams to
build apps that users want.

I am also very interested in wireless infrastructure and equipment
having focused on this space for the last couple of years. I am seeing
a lot of innovation by great teams and already have a couple of
projects that seem promising.

I think two things are in play here: First, how would you expect
Nokia, FB, and Jimmy to react? No way those folks would throw in the
towel or even concede any threat. Instead, in the grand tradition of
technology, they wear a strong face, inspire their teams, users, and
investors, and get back to the lab to continue innovating. Soon it will
be each of their turns to launch the feature or do the 'Google killer'
deal and so the cycle repeats.

In parallel, it has always fascinated me to see the press impose
upon Google the expectation that everything the company does will be a
smashing success. This despite the stated fact the company prefers to
launch new projects early and often and see what catches on. Will
Android, OpenSocial and Knol all change the world? Who knows.
(Actually, I am pretty sure Android will ... but I digress.) The
important thing is that Google keep empowering entrepreneurs to take
chances and try new and creative approaches to solving problems.
Failure at many of those ventures is inevitable, but the successes will
be worth it all.

"We've been getting notes from some of the telco carriers who are
saying 'look, you need to stop our customers from downloading this
thing' [Google Maps for Mobile] . . . They're inserting themselves in between you and an application that you want. I think that has scary, scary implications."

Though most of the discussion that day had been about other startups and innovation, a question came up about mobile and I just couldn't help but express myself with instinctive candor. Within hours, my response was all over the newspapers and the phone was ringing off the hook. A lot of folks inside the company were upset and worried that Google would suffer retribution at the hands of carriers. Quite simply, I was in the doghouse.

At the same time, I didn't regret what I had said. It was true. The state of neutrality for the wireless Net in the United States was woeful. We had inspiring entrepreneurs at Google building game-changing products and some users were not able to get their hands on those apps. It bummed me out. Thankfully, I wasn't the only person at Google who felt that way.

Turns out, a lot of people at Google cared deeply about these issues. So we built a humbling team of like-minded folks to explore what we could do to make the wireless industry more open. At first, it was comprised of all volunteers, though we have since grown to much bigger ranks including dozens of full-time RF engineers and policy gurus. In fact, we have now grown too big for the room in which
we hold our meetings and chairs are scarce.

The group is cooperatively managed by a handful of us as peers. Our meetings are open to any Googlers who want to contribute and our internal mailing list is available to any of our colleagues who want to subscribe. Our mission is ambitious, but clear: do what it takes to inspire or create a mobile ecosystem in the United States that will allow user choice to flourish and level the playing field for new applications and devices.

I could write for a while about how busy this year has been and how much my teammates have accomplished. You can read some of our updates on the Googleblogs, and in the event you get bored with facts and certainty, there is more than enough wild speculation about what else we might be doing.

In any event, we have seen openness and consumer choice thrust to into the national spotlight. The Republican chairman of the FCC, and three of his colleagues,heeded our call for more openness in wireless. Congressional hearings have been called with members, including Republicans, rallying to support the principles of openness. We have seen traditionally conservative business magazines and newspapers reverse course and espouse greater consumer flexibility and more choices for users. It has been such a rewarding time to work with this team and to see the impact we can all have working together.

In that light, I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to recognize the sea change that occurred in the US wireless industry yesterday. As the largest wireless carrier in the country, Verizon Wireless announced that they would soon allow customers the option of bringing their own device to and accessing their own applications on the Verizon network. The news spread quickly with all manner of analysis and conclusions being drawn about why this happened. Did Google force Verizon's hand? Was this an auction signaling tactic? Was this some kind of gift to the FCC? I actually don't think any of those are true, though I will leave it to you to form your own opinions and theories.

What matters more to me than the motivation is the result. While Verizon by no means committed to the full openness principles
for which Google has been advocating, and substantial risk remains in exactly how they choose to implement their ideas, I do think we need to recognize this as a very positive step forward. Publishing technical standards for device integration and promising to host a developer conference are commendable moves. Offering retail support to these devices is also noteworthy and a very welcome development. I sincerely look forward to seeing Lowell McAdam's vision come to fruition and I congratulate him and his team on their new direction. I hope we have the chance to work together in the future.

In the meantime, yesterday's announcement causes me to pause and reflect on the whirlwind of this past year. There is a lot of work to do still, and the issues of openness and user choice in wireless are far from resolved. However, we have all come a very long way and it is clear that the good guys are building momentum. Thank you to Eric, Larry, Sergey, David and many other members of the Google management team who have shown their faith in our bold and admittedly unorthodox notions and who continue to give us the resources and support to try to change the world. Above all, thank you to the members of this team who have worked selflessly and tirelessly this entire year with no promise of reward or recognition. You all inspire me.

June 05, 2007

(Not exactly what I figured the next post on my blog would say. I have been chewing over some thoughts about WiFi and the junk science that opponents and reporters alike love to sensationalize. I even spent this morning cranking out a lighthearted post about kitesurfing. I thought it would be great to get something up on the blog before I headed off on two weeks of travel in Europe and the Caribbean.)

My friend Nancy was coming by my house to pick something up before I left. I was waiting outside on the curb, got bored and started to type out a to do list on my Blackberry. Suddenly I heard two loud, distinct pops. I can’t say they sounded unfamiliar, but the potential to hear gunshots on a Monday was so distinctly out of the realm of possibility, my brain searched for other explanations. A car backfiring? Fireworks?

Any attempt to reasonably explain away what I had just heard was undermined by the report from my eyes. There I was looking at a thirty-year-old Asian guy clutching desperately at his loins as his legs gave out and he crumbled to the pavement. If there was any doubt remaining about what just took place, a silver Chrysler 300 squealed its tires and streaked right toward me to flee the scene. Holy shit. This car just shot someone.

Instinct kicked in immediately. Had I paused to consciously process anything, my next steps would have gone differently. The shooter, a black male behind the wheel, was pinned at the intersection of 3rd and Townsend. Stuck in the right hand lane, the traffic heading up 3rd Street left him no immediate options to escape. A large semi truck was in the lane to his left further boxing him in and simultaneously providing me cover.

Thus, I made my move and sprinted up toward the suspect’s car. I rolled my body along the edge of the trailer until I was able to catch the full license plate number just before he found a window to spin out across the intersection toward the Embarcadero. It wasn’t until much later that I started to digest that, at one point, I was a car length from an attempted murderer. Thank goodness the insanity of that adjacency didn’t occur to me in the moment. Instead, I had one momentary obsession – write down that plate number before I forgot it.

By now there was shouting coming at me from all sides. “Did you get it?” “Hey, get down! Get down!” “Someone get that license plate number!” “Watch out!” While I just tried to steady my hands long enough to etch the digits onto my screen. The remaining items on my packing/to-do list thus soon read:

Socks (blue and black for Oxford)Baseball capJacketHarpers and Atlantic magsTake out the trashPull kite, harness, and lines from truck5RLG375

Plate number in hand I dialed 911 – busy signal of course - as I ran back toward 4th to aid the man down. He was face down on the pavement. I don’t mean to say he was just on his stomach. I mean literally, his nose was buried in the asphalt, one arm splayed out above his head, like a dyke guiding the fluorescent red blood leaving him on its dash for the gutter.

We were helpless, the few of us standing there not knowing what to do. They didn’t cover drive-bys and massive trauma in the CPR course I took. A kind forty-five year old man placed his hand on the victim’s back repeating with inspired but dubitable confidence that everything would be all right. In that moment, an SF police officer rushed from across the street. He had happened upon the incident in the normal course and wasted no time in jumping into the fray. The 911 dispatchers had yet to answer my call, nevertheless, I was able to grab the cop and have him radio out the plate number that I read from the screen in my trembling hands. As his call went out on the air we could immediately hear the ambient echo of sirens firing up across the city.

The cop rolled the downed man over onto his back revealing his injuries. What I saw I will never forget, and I won’t start to describe. To even type this now from my aisle seat high above the Atlantic makes me shake and my eyes well up. What the hell happened out there today?! There was so much blood. So much pain. So much panic and fear.

The paramedics responded with an urgency and feverishness to which I am not accustomed. They tore off the man’s clothes, working almost spastically to clean and stabilize his wound. I heard one announce that the bullet was still lodged in him while another declared that he was losing too much blood.

This searing montage was interrupted intermittently by the cop’s crackling radio as officers updated the pursuit. There was a shared but virtually silent celebration when we learned that the shooter had ultimately been cornered and taken into custody by police near the Bay Bridge. Notions of civil justice, despite what the movies may tell you, feel quite hollow while still peering down at a body struggling for its life.

It took a few minutes before a maintenance worker noticed a funny little copper object at his feet and asked if it might be a shell casing. Alas, it was actually one of the two bullets fired, the other still burrowed deep within the victim’s flesh. This errant projectile was surprisingly rejected by the steel and concrete baseboard of the Beacon building and now lying motionless and deformed in the sidewalk crack. I wondered how warm it might be.

I went home and tried to busy myself with continued packing but noticed for the first time how sweaty I was, my shirt clinging to my body and my brow dripping. I tried to distract myself by loading up my iPod and making sure my toiletries all fit in the TSA-prescribed plastic bag. But, I soon couldn’t hold back the emotion.

What the fuck?! Where to start? What is going on here? What could drive someone to do such a thing? How does this happen in San Francisco one block from the ball park in the middle of the day? Why do we take all of life for granted? What allows some of us to sloganeer in the fight to own firearms and yet be myopic to the empirical result of gun ownership?

I wanted to write another piece of this post. I wanted to talk all about what it is like to grow up in an Upstate New York town where working at the Lions Club Gun Show was valued as volunteer work. I also thought I would write a bit about living in El Salvador on the heels of their civil war where everyone carried a gun, literally, everyone, and how I often encourage staunch gun possession advocates to go spend some time there and tell me if they feel any safer after daily exchanges of fire.

But, I am frankly just drained and hoping that as I finally fall asleep in seat 31C, there is a gunshot victim recovering in a San Francisco hospital. I hope his family can be with him tonight. And, I hope that everyone who saw what happened today takes a moment to relate that experience to others toward the end that we may someday realize the undeniable folly of guns.

(Update: Here is a link to the press account of what happened: http://www.ktvu.com/news/13440784/detail.html)